Medicare & Medicaid

1 outta 5 enrolled in Medicare...Record 70.4 Million Enrolled in Medicaid in 2011: 1 Out of Every 5 AmericansNovember 9, 2012 – A record 70.4 million people were enrolled in the Medicaid health care program for the poor in fiscal year 2011, according to government figures provided to CNSNews.com.

That figure equals about 22 percent of the population, which means there was one person on Medicaid for every 5 Americans in 2011. The record number of Medicaid enrollees in 2011 – the earliest year for which figures are available – is a count of all persons enrolled in Medicaid for any part of that year, providing the fullest and most accurate count of the size of the entitlement program. (The federal fiscal year in 2011 ran from Oct. 1, 2010 to Sept. 30, 2011.)

Figures provided to CNSNews.com by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), the agency that oversees the two health care entitlements, reveal an ever-expanding Medicaid program. From 2005 to 2011, total enrollees grew by more than 10 million people, going from 60.1 million in 2005 to 70.4 million in 2011. Medicaid is the joint federal-state health care program for the poor that allows states to extend coverage beyond those who are in poverty. Recently, the ObamaCare health reform law expanded Medicaid eligibility to those living on 133 percent of the federal poverty level.

The poverty level annual income for a family of four is $23,000 – 133 percent of that, in terms of annual income for a family of four, would be $30,590. That expansion does not go into effect until 2014, however, and therefore does not affect the continued growth trend. Nor does it contribute to the record 70.4 million Americans enrolled in Medicaid.

Boehner Capitulates: ‘Obamacare is the Law of the Land’November 9, 2012 -- Although the Republican-dominant House of Representatives controls the federal purse strings, House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) said that Tuesday’s election victory by President Barack Obama changed how he will approach the GOP goal of repealing the health reform law, saying that the president’s reelection made it “the law of the land.”

“Well, I think the election changes that. It’s pretty clear that the president was re-elected. Obamacare is the law of the land,” Boehner told ABC News’ Diane Sawyer in an interview Thursday when asked if the House GOP would still make repeal its mission. However, Boehner also said that the law was still “on the table,” noting that he still considered it bad policy and that it was not off limits as he begins negotiations with Obama over key budgetary issues.

As House Speaker, Boehner can prevent any funding for Obamacare or any aspect of it through amendments to funding legislation, to a continuing resolution, or by simply not allowing a floor vote on the funding. “I think there are parts of the health care law that are going to be very difficult to implement and very expensive and, at a time when we’re trying to find a way to create a path toward a balanced budget, everything has to be on the table,” he said in the ABC interview.

When pressed, Boehner clarified that no decision had been made yet over which parts of the law would be included in negotiations, saying that parts of the law could be on the table. “There are certainly maybe parts of it that we believe need to be changed – we may do that, no decisions at this point,” he said.

Boehner repeated during the interview that he viewed Obama’s reelection and Republicans’ failure to achieve a Senate majority as a mandate from the American public for the two parties to work together, saying that it was simply the hand he was dealt.